Ratings: ‘Galavant’ finale fails to help season 3 odds; ‘Grease: Live’ crushes everything

Everyone probably assumed that Fox was going to have a ratings winner in “Grease: Live,” and for good reason. It was a chance to do something that NBC has made money off of for years in live theater, and they got a great cast of familiar faces on board, from Julianne Hough to Vanessa Hudgens to even some pop singers like Carly Rae Jepsen and Jessie J.

All of this paid off on Sunday in a very significant way.

The winners – Specifically, “Grease: Live” managed to rocked to a monster 4.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic and more than 12 million viewers in a night where there was no NFL competition or awards show standing in its way. It had over three times more of a demo audience than anything else on the air; NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” special was second with a 1.4, which is something that we still consider to be enough of a win for the network to be happy.

The losers – While the “Galavant” finale was definitely a winner in our hearts, we aren’t too optimistic about its renewal odds at ABC with just a 0.6 rating for the final episodes. Even though it’s an increase over last week’s episode, the only way it comes back there is if the network programming heads are absolutely in love with it and are willing to take a little bit of a commercial hit in the process. (Even if it does get canceled, there’s hope for a second life at Hulu or somewhere else.)

Also on the night, both “Madam Secretary” (1.1) and “The Good Wife” (1.0) fell pretty hard. You can probably go ahead and blame “Grease” for a big chunk of that.